Spring Fever Bargain Books, Part II

OK, now that you have books on hand to get your vegetable garden growing this year (or maybe joined a local CSA), you may want to pick up one or two cookbooks (is it possible to have too many good cookbooks?) for inspiration on how to consume all that produce this summer. Even if you aren't gardening yourself, there should be at least one title below that appeals, whether you want to eat more locally produced foods, try an exotic new recipe or just lose a little weight without resorting to processed, frozen dinners for every meal.

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle ($1.99 Kindle, B&N, Kobo), by Barbara Kingsolver [HarperCollins], is practically the bible of the local food movement.

Book Description
Bestselling author Barbara Kingsolver returns with her first nonfiction narrative that will open your eyes in a hundred new ways to an old truth: You are what you eat.

"As the U.S. population made an unprecedented mad dash for the Sun Belt, one carload of us paddled against the tide, heading for the Promised Land where water falls from the sky and green stuff grows all around. We were about to begin the adventure of realigning our lives with our food chain.

"Naturally, our first stop was to buy junk food and fossil fuel. . . ."

Hang on for the ride: With characteristic poetry and pluck, Barbara Kingsolver and her family sweep readers along on their journey away from the industrial-food pipeline to a rural life in which they vow to buy only food raised in their own neighborhood, grow it themselves, or learn to live without it. Their good-humored search yields surprising discoveries about turkey sex life and overly zealous zucchini plants, en route to a food culture that's better for the neighborhood and also better on the table. Part memoir, part journalistic investigation, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle makes a passionate case for putting the kitchen back at the center of family life and diversified farms at the center of the American diet.

"This is the story of a year in which we made every attempt to feed ourselves animals and vegetables whose provenance we really knew . . . and of how our family was changed by our first year of deliberately eating food produced from the same place where we worked, went to school, loved our neighbors, drank the water, and breathed the air."

The Beekeeper's Lament: How One Man and Half a Billion Honey Bees Help Feed America ($1.99 Kindle, B&N, Kobo), by Hannah Nordhaus [HarperCollins], is one I'd recommend to anyone that eats and is concerned both about the cost of food (everything from squash to almonds) and getting food locally. I know that our bees declined at the same time and for seemingly no reason (and that continues - we don't have bees at all after the winter, some years).

Book Description
Award-winning journalist Hannah Nordhaus tells the remarkable story of John Miller, one of America’s foremost migratory beekeepers, and the myriad and mysterious epidemics threatening American honeybee populations. In luminous, razor-sharp prose, Nordhaus explores the vital role that honeybees play in American agribusiness, the maintenance of our food chain, and the very future of the nation. With an intimate focus and incisive reporting, in a book perfect for fans of Eric Schlosser’s Fast Food Nation, Michael Pollan’s The Botany of Desire,and John McPhee’s Oranges, Nordhaus’s stunning exposé illuminates one the most critical issues facing the world today,offering insight, information, and, ultimately, hope.

Cooking Light Pick Fresh Cookbook: Creating Big Flavors from the Freshest Produce ($4.99 Kindle), by Mary Beth Burner Shaddix and the Editors of Cooking Light Magazine [Oxmoor House]

Book Description
Cooking Light Pick Fresh Cookbook shares the secrets to buying, growing, and cooking your favorite fresh fruits, vegetables, and herbs. Bursting with beautiful color photographs, this book is an invaluable resource for home cooks, novice gardeners, and food lovers alike. Cooking Light Pick Fresh Cookbook includes:

• More than 200 full-color photos
• Organized by fruits, vegetables, and herbs makes it easy to find recipes and information for the fresh produce you have right now
• 150+ recipes that utilize the fresh taste of the season's best produce in main dishes, sides, salads, dessert, and more
• Easy getting-started gardening tips from Mary Beth Shaddix, Cooking Light's expert gardener, for growing your own fruits and vegetables, whether it's in your backyard or on your windowsill
• A complete nutritional analysis for each recipe

How To Eat ($1.99 Kindle, B&N), by Nigella Lawson [Hyperion]; I bought this a couple of years ago, on sale, but you can now get it for half what I paid.

Book Description
Through her wildly popular television shows, her five bestselling cookbooks, her line of kitchenware, and her frequent media appearances, Nigella Lawson has emerged as one of the food world's most seductive personalities. How to Eat is the book that started it all--Nigella's signature, all-purposed cookbook, brimming with easygoing mealtime strategies and 350 mouthwatering recipes, from a truly sublime Tarragon French Roast Chicken to a totally decadent Chocolate Raspberry Pudding Cake. Here is Nigella's total (and totally irresistible) approach to food--the book that lays bare her secrets for finding pleasure in the simple things that we cook and eat every day.

The Beginner's Guide to Preserving Food at Home: Easy Techniques for the Freshest Flavors in Jams, Jellies, Pickles, Relishes, Salsas, Sauces, and Frozen and Dried Fruits and Vegetables ($2.99 Kindle, B&N), by Janet Chadwick [Storey Publishing]

Book Description
A wonderful thing is happening in home kitchens. People are rediscovering the joys of locally produced foods and reducing the amount of the grocery budget that's spent on packaged items, out-of-season produce, and heavily processed foods. But fresh, seasonal fruits and vegetables don't stay fresh and delicious forever - they must be eaten now . . . or preserved for later.

For all the vegetable gardeners facing baskets overflowing with bright tomatoes, and for all the dedicated farmers' market fans and CSA members, The Beginner's Guide to Preserving Food at Home has the simple solutions that turn overwhelming bounty into neatly canned tomatoes, jars of jams and jellies, and crispy-tart relishes and pickles.

Organized in a friendly, food-by-food format, readers will find freezing, drying, canning, and storing instructions for each vegetable, fruit, and herb. In many cases, several ways to freeze or can a food are described, and there are often other preserving suggestions as well, such as making juice or fruit leather.

Everything is written with busy people in mind: these are the quickest, most efficient methods for preserving summer's bounty. Up-to-date information and clear, step-by-step instructions show even absolute beginners the way to a fully stocked pantry.

Sweet on Texas: Lovable Confections from the Lone Star State ($3.03 Kindle, B&N, $3.49 Kobo), by Robert M. Peacock and Denise Gee [Chronicle Book]

Book Description
This tantalizing tome features a hearty helping of must-eat recipes and must-meet dessert devotees, garnished with their fascinating stories. Learn about local Texan bakeries, the youngest pastry chef in the state, and the proper way to organize a Southern cookie swap. Divided into four tasty Texas regions, this cookbook features the big flavors of sweet treats like Deep Chocolate Meringue Pie, Citrus-Kissed Fig Ice Cream, Deep-Fried Coca-Cola, and Sweet Pineapple Tamales. With more than 60 classic and brand spankin' new recipes for cakes, cookies, puddings, cobblers, ice cream, pies, and pastries, Sweet on Texas is a sugar-coated tour through the culinary wonderland of the Lone Star State.

Make It Fast, Cook It Slow: The Big Book of Everyday Slow Cooking ($1.99 Kindle, B&N), by Stephanie O'Dea [Hyperion], is another one I bought at twice the current price! This cookbook does double duty: not only can you find recipes to use up your garden produce, you can use them to cook your meals while you are out gardening! Also of note: all the recipes are gluten free!

Book Description
Make It Fast, Cook It Slow is the first cookbook from Stephanie O'Dea, the extremely popular slow cooking blogger: affordable, delicious, nutritious, and gluten-free recipes to delight the entire family.

In December 2007, Stephanie O'Dea made a New Year's resolution: she'd use her slow cooker every single day for an entire year, and write about it on her very popular blog. The result: more than three million visitors, and more than 300 fabulous, easy-to-make, family-pleasing recipes, including:

• Breakfast Risotto
• Vietnamese Roast Chicken
• Tomatoes and Goat Cheese with Balsamic Cranberry Syrup
• Falafel
• Philly Cheesesteaks
• CrÈme Brulee

--and much more. Make It Fast, Cook It Slow is the perfect cookbook for easy, quick prep, inexpensive ingredients, and meals that taste like you spent hours at the stove.

In the Kitchen with A Good Appetite: 150 Recipes and Stories About the Food You Love ($1.99 Kindle, B&N), by Melissa Clark [Hyperion], I also bought last year (but at only a dollar more than this year's sale price). Even if you don't buy the entire book, be sure to check out the Amazon page, where you'll find a complete recipe for Spiced Chipotle Honey Chicken Breasts with Sweet Potatoes.

Book Description
“A Good Appetite,” Melissa Clark’s weekly feature in the New York Times Dining Section, is about dishes that are easy to cook and that speak to everyone, either stirring a memory or creating one. Now, Clark takes the same freewheeling yet well-informed approach that has won her countless fans and applies it to one hundred and fifty delicious, simply sophisticated recipes.

Clark prefaces each recipe with the story of its creation—the missteps as well as the strokes of genius—to inspire improvisation in her readers. So when discussing her recipe for Crisp Chicken Schnitzel, she offers plenty of tried-and-true tips learned from an Austrian chef; and in My Mother’s Lemon Pot Roast, she gives the same high-quality advice, but culled from her own family’s kitchen.

Memorable chapters reflect the way so many of us like to eat: Things with Cheese (think Baked Camembert with Walnut Crumble and Ginger Marmalade), The Farmers’ Market and Me (Roasted Spiced Cauliflower and Almonds), It Tastes Like Chicken (Garlic and Thyme–Roasted Chicken with Crispy Drippings Croutons), and many more delectable but not overly complicated dishes.

In addition, Clark writes with Laurie Colwin–esque warmth and humor about the relationship that we have with our favorite foods, about the satisfaction of cooking a meal where everyone wants seconds, and about the pleasures of eating. From stories of trips to France with her parents, growing up (where she and her sister were required to sit on unwieldy tuna Nicoise sandwiches to make them more manageable), to bribing a fellow customer for the last piece of dessert at the farmers’ market, Melissa’s stories will delight any reader who starts thinking about what’s for dinner as soon as breakfast is cleared away. This is a cookbook to read, to savor, and most important, to cook delicious, rewarding meals from.

The Belly Fat Diet Cookbook: 105 Easy and Delicious Recipes to Lose Your Belly, Shed Excess Weight, Improve Health ($2.51 Kindle, $4.99 Kobo), by John Chatham [Rockridge University Press], is a companion to The Belly Fat Diet ($4.99 Kindle, B&N, Kobo), but starts out with enough of the basis of the diet before jumping into recipes that you can probably skip the second title, completely. Note that unlike some of his Paleo diet cookbooks, many of the recipes in this one are not gluten free (and if you are new to a GF diet, there is gluten hiding in the spelt and bulgar, amongst other ingredients), although many can be easily adapted (by using GF oats, for example).

Book Description
Trim away your belly fat with a healthy and delicious diet.

Achieving a flat stomach is not about doing hundreds of crunches or worrying about how much you eat; it's about what you eat. The Belly Fat Diet Cookbook provides delicious recipes and teaches you how to eat more, weigh less, and achieve a flat belly.

• Enjoy your favorite healthful dishes from breakfast to dessert, including Green Smoothies, Chicken Stir Fry, Baked Kale and Sweet Potato Chips, Almond Encrusted Salmon, and Berry Parfait.
• Learn the dangers of excess belly fat from its harmful impacts on your liver, to increasing your risk of type 2 diabetes, heart disease, dementia, and a stroke.
• The Belly Fat Diet Cookbook offers 105 healthy recipes, tips for a successful transition to the belly fat diet, and the Belly Fat Diet Shopping Guide to help you minimize your intake of sugar and processed carbohydrates.

Lose weight and lose your belly with The Belly Fat Diet Cookbook--a sustainable path to a longer, healthier, and leaner life.

In his latest work, bestselling author John Chatham blasts the myths surrounding belly fat. The groundbreaking research in The Belly Fat Diet Cookbook reveals a science-based approach to healthy eating and looking good, and it doesn't involve starving yourself.

The Belly Fat Diet Cookbook: 105 Delicious Recipes to Lose Your Belly, Shed Excess Weight and Improve Health provides an easy-to-follow health solution that gets fast, visible, long-lasting results from the inside out.

Bargain Book Trio

Food to Live By: The Earthbound Farm Organic Cookbook ($2.99 Kindle, B&N, Kobo), by Myra Goodman, Linda Holland and Pamela McKinstry [Workman Publishing Company]

Book Description
Organic food is the best food possible. It’s synonymous with premium quality, delicious flavor, conscientious farming, and optimum health. It’s what we need to feed our kids, it’s what we deserve to feed ourselves. And thanks in part to Myra Goodman, co-owner and cofounder of Earthbound Farm with her husband, Drew, organic food is now available just about anywhere fresh food is sold, becoming more mainstream every day.

Not only has Myra been growing organic food for over twenty years, she has been cooking with it, too. In Food to Live By she combines her twin food passions, serving up hundreds of recipes, ideas, shopping and cooking tips, health notes, and more. Illustrating the book are full-color photographs throughout that bring readers right into the breathtaking California sunshine.

This is perfect cooking for friends and family, packed with irresistible dishes for weeknight dinners and casual entertaining, festive breakfasts and fall picnics. Recipes are all about the ingredients and their intrinsic qualities, not fancy techniques or time-consuming steps. Marry chicken with three simple accompaniments— rosemary, lemons, and garlic—and it’s transformed. Heighten the flavor of a springtime fava bean and orzo salad with an unexpected fava bean “pesto.” Combine Meyer lemon juice and soy sauce to create a marinade, tenderizer, and sauce that results in a perfect grilled flank steak.

Food to Live By also includes a wealth of information about organic farming and how to make the wisest food choices; there are full-color Field Guides—to gourmet greens, apples, heirloom tomatoes, winter squash—and Farm Fresh ingredient guides to sorrel, corn, melons, avocados, organic poultry, asparagus, artichokes, ginger, and more, featuring what to look for plus care and handling. The book is a boon to food lovers.

The Blessings of the Animals ($1.99 Kindle, B&N, Kobo), by Katrina Kittle [HarperCollins]

Book Description
From Katrina Kittle, critically acclaimed author of The Kindness of Strangers, comes a wry and moving story of forgiveness, flexibility, happiness, and the art of moving on.

Veterinarian Cami Anderson has hit a rough patch. Stymied by her recent divorce, she wonders if there are secret ingredients to a happy, long-lasting marriage or if the entire institution is outdated and obsolete. Couples all around her are approaching important milestones. Her parents are preparing to celebrate their fiftieth anniversary. Her brother and his partner find their marriage dreams legally blocked. Her former sister-in-law—still her best friend—is newly engaged. The youthfully exuberant romance of her teenage daughter is developing complications. And three separate men—including her ex-husband—are becoming entangled in Cami's messy post-marital love life.

But as she struggles to come to terms with her own doubts amid this chaotic circus of relationships, Cami finds strange comfort in an unexpected confidant: an angry, unpredictable horse in her care. With the help of her equine soul mate, she begins to make sense of marriage's great mysteries—and its disconnects.

Wiseguy: The 25th Anniversary Edition ($3.99 Kindle), by Nicholas Pileggi [Simon and Schuster], the book that inspired GoodFellas.

Book Description
Nicholas Pileggi’s vivid, unvarnished, journalistic chronicle of the life of Henry Hill—the working-class Brooklyn kid who knew from age twelve that “to be a wiseguy was to own the world,” who grew up to live the highs and lows of the gangster’s life—has been hailed as “the best book ever written on organized crime” (Cosmopolitan).

This is the true-crime bestseller that was the basis for Martin Scorsese’s film masterpiece GoodFellas, which brought to life the violence, the excess, the families, the wives and girlfriends, the drugs, the payoffs, the paybacks, the jail time, and the Feds . . . with Henry Hill’s crackling narration drawn straight out of Wiseguy and overseeing all the unforgettable action.

Read it and experience the secret life inside the mob—from one who’s lived it.

Free Book - Bean, Meet Skillet (DF)

Bean, Meet Skillet, which looks to be a 26 recipe sampler of recipes taken from Crescent Dragonwagon's Bean By Bean: A Cookbook: More than 175 Recipes for Fresh Beans, Dried Beans, Cool Beans, Hot Beans, Savory Beans, Even Sweet Beans! ($8.61 Kindle), is free direct from Workman Publishing this month, as a part of their Blue Plate Specials promotion. Since Bean By Bean weighs in at 400 pages, it's a pretty good deal if you want more than the sampler provides.

Book Description
James Beard Award-winning author Crescent Dragonwagon gives the humble bean its proper due, showcasing its versatility in stovetop recipes from refried beans to falafel and tofu.

Get the free ebook from Workman, using promo code l0v3f0rb34nz (no spaces and those are numbers in places of some letters). You can download a DRM-Free copy in MOBI or EPUB format. As an extra bonus, get a springtime dispatch and a recipe for a Sugar Snap Pea salad from Crescent Dragonwagon on Workman's website.

Bean By Bean: A Cookbook

Has there ever been a more generous ingredient than the bean? Down-home, yet haute, soul-satisfyingly hearty, valued, versatile deeply delectable, healthful, and inexpensive to boot, there’s nothing a bean can’t do—and nothing that Crescent Dragonwagon can’t do with beans. From old friends like chickpeas and pintos to rediscovered heirloom beans like rattlesnake beans and teparies, from green beans and fresh shell beans to peanuts, lentils, and peas, Bean by Bean is the definitive cookbook on beans. It’s a 175-plus recipe cornucopia overflowing with information, kitchen wisdom, lore, anecdotes, and a zest for good food and good times.

Consider the lentil, to take one example. Discover it first in a delicious slather, Lentil Tapenade. Then in half a dozen soups, including Sahadi’s Lebanese Lentil Soup with Spinach, Kerala-Style Dahl, and Crescent’s Very, Very Best Lentil, Mushroom & Barley Soup. It then turns up in Marinated Lentils De Puy with Greens, Baked Beets, Oranges & Walnuts. Plus there’s Jamaica Jerk-Style Lentil-Vegetable Patties, Ethiopian Lentil Stew, and Lentil-Celeriac Skillet Sauce. Do the same for black beans—from Tex-Mex Frijoles Dip to Feijoada Vegetariana to Maya’s Magic Black Beans with Eggplant & Royal Rice. Or shell beans—Newly Minted Puree of Fresh Favas, Baked Limas with Rosy Sour Cream, Edamame in a Pod. And on and on—from starters and soups to dozens of entrees. Even desserts: Peanut Butter Cup Brownies and Red Bean Ice Cream.

Bargain Baking Roundup

Chocolate Cakes: 50 Great Cakes for Every Occasion ($3.99 Kindle), by Elinor Klivans and Ann Stratton [Chronicle Books]

Book Description
There are enough people out there obsessed with chocolate cake to warrant an official holiday: National Chocolate Cake Day, January 27th. Beloved baker Elinor Klivans, author of the best-selling Cupcakes! and Cupcake Kit, has dedicated her new cookbook to the stuff of chocoholic fantasy: chocolate cake. There's something for bakers of every skill level in the 50 recipes included here, from fast chocolate fixes like the Hot Chocolate Pudding Cake to more elaborate recipes like the Mocha Whipped Cream Truffle Cake. This book is certain to be celebrated by chocolate lovers everywhere. And how will they do that? With cake, of course!

Chocolate from the Cake Mix Doctor ($2.51 Kindle), by Anne Byrn [Workman Publishing]

Book Description
The Cake Mix Doctor goes chocolate! Anne Byrn brings her proven prescription for doctoring cake mix to an ingredient that inspires love bordering on obsession.

It's a marriage made in baker's heaven-150 all-new, all-easy recipes for cakes, starring the ingredient that surpasses all other flavors, including vanilla, by a 3-to-1 margin, and that Americans consume to the tune of 2.8 billion pounds a year. Starting with versatile supermarket cake mixes and adding just the right extras-including melted semisweet chocolate bars, chocolate chips, or cocoa powder, plus fresh eggs or a bit of buttermilk, dried coconut, mashed bananas, or instant coffee powder-a baker at any level of experience can turn out dark, rich, moist, delicious chocolate layer cakes, time and again. Not to mention sheet cakes, pound cakes, cupcakes and muffins, cheesecakes, cookies, brownies, and bars. Rounding out the book are 38 all-new homemade frostings and fillings, and a full-color insert showing every cake in the book.

Southern Cakes: Sweet and Irresistible Recipes for Everyday Celebrations ($2.99 Kindle), by Nancie McDermott and Becky Luigart-Stayner (Photographer) [Chronicle Books]

Book Description
Taste the chocolatey goodness of Mississippi Mud or marvel at the extravagant elegance of the Lady Baltimore and there will be no doubt that Southerners know how to bake a cake. Here are 65 recipes for some of the most delicious ever. Jam cakes and jelly rolls; humble pear bread and peanut cake; whole chapters on both chocolate and coconut cakes, each moist and delicious forkful represents the spirit of the South. A Baking 101 section offers the cake basics, some finishing touches (that means frosting and lots of it!), and the how-to's of storing each lovely concoction so that the last slice tastes as fresh and delightful as the first.

Southern Biscuits ($1.99 Kindle, $2.99 Kobo - seems to be different edition, possibly for non-US market, but available in the US), by Nathalie Dupree and Cynthia Graubart

Book Description
Southern Biscuits features recipes and baking secrets for every biscuit imaginable, including hassle-free easy biscuits to embellished biscuits laced with silky goat butter, crunchy pecans, or tangy pimento cheese. The traditional biscuits in this book encompass a number of types, from beaten biscuits of the Old South and England, to Angel Biscuits—a yeast biscuit sturdy enough to split and fill but light enough to melt in your mouth. Filled with beautiful photography, including dozens of how-to photos showing how to mix, stir, fold, roll, and knead, Southern Biscuits is the definitive biscuit baking book.

Bargain Book Roundup

I previously mentioned Saved by the Rancher, the first in Jennifer Ryan's The Hunted series (and which is still only $0.99); now you can pre-order the next two titles in the series, Lucky Like Us and The Right Bride for $1.99 each. There is also a pre-order for All I Want for Christmas Is a Cowboy at the same price, but it's hard to tell if it will be a single novella from Ryan or an anthology that also includes stories by Katie Lane and Emma Cane (you can always return it when delivered, if it turns out to be something you don't want and you won't be charged more than $1.99, even if the price rises later, if you lock in now).

Lucky Like Us

The Hunted series continues as Special Agent Sam Turner discovers that protecting the FBI's star witness is more difficult than he thought!

Bakery owner Elizabeth Hamilton's quiet life is filled with sweet treats, good friends, and a loving family. But all of that is about to turn sour when an odd sound draws her outside. There's a man lying unconscious in the street, a car speeding toward him. Without hesitation, she gets the man out of harm's way before they're run down.

Unwittingly, Elizabeth has put herself in the path of a serial murderer, and as the only one who can identify the FBI's Silver Fox Killer, she's ended up in the hospital with a target on her back.

All that stands between her and death is Special Agent Sam Turner. Against his better judgment, Sam gets emotionally involved, determined to take down the double threat against Elizabeth—an ex desperate to get her back, despite a restraining order, and a psychopath bent on silencing her before she can identify him.

They set a trap to catch the killer—putting Elizabeth in his hands, with Sam desperate to save her. If he's lucky, he'll get his man … and the girl.

The Right Bride

High-powered businessman Cameron Shaw doesn't believe in love—until he falls head over heels for beautiful, passionate, and intensely private Martina. She's perfect in so many ways, immediately bonding with his little girl. Martina could be his future bride and a delightful stepmother … if only Cameron weren't blinded by his belief that Shelly, the gold-digging woman he's promised to marry, is pregnant with his child.

No matter how much his friends protest his upcoming marriage to Shelly, Cameron knows he has a duty to his children, so he's determined to see it through.

Will he find out in time that Shelly's lying and Marti's the one who's actually carrying his child? It'll come down to the day of his wedding. After choosing Shelly over Marti at every turn, will he convince Marti she's his world and the only woman he wants?

Ruhlman's Twenty ($3.03 Kindle), by Michael Ruhlman and Donna Turner Ruhlman (Photographer), is a full-length cookbook from Chronicle Books. There are 20 concepts covered and over 100 recipes included in this award-winning cookbook (James Beard Foundation 2012 Book Awards winner, General Cooking category & International Association of Culinary Professionals' 2012 Cookbook Awards winner, Food and Beverage Reference/Technical category).

Book Description
Rare is the cookbook that redefines how we cook. And rare is the author who can do so with the ease and expertise of acclaimed writer and culinary authority Michael Ruhlman. Twenty distills Ruhlman's decades of cooking, writing, and working with the world's greatest chefs into twenty essential ideas from ingredients to processes to attitude that are guaranteed to make every cook more accomplished. Whether cooking a multi-course meal, the juiciest roast chicken, or just some really good scrambled eggs, Ruhlman reveals how a cooks success boils down to the same twenty concepts. With the illuminating expertise that has made him one of the most esteemed food journalists, Ruhlman explains the hows and whys of each concept and reinforces those discoveries through 100 recipes for everything from soups to desserts, all detailed in over 300 photographs. Cooks of all levels will revel in Ruhlman's game-changing Twenty.

The Surrender of Miss Fairbourne ($1.99 Kindle), by Madeline Hunter [Penguin]

Book Description
A woman running a prestigious London auction house? Preposterous! But that is exactly what Emma Fairbourne intends to do when her father dies, leaving her the reins of this fabulous enterprise. Of course, she is not addlepated enough to do this openly and scare away her wealthy collectors. So she and her friend concoct a deception, hiring a handsome and charming front man who will do her bidding...

All would have proceeded smoothly--if it weren't for the maddening interference of Darius, the arrogant Earl of Southwaite, who has been her father's "silent partner" and now shares ownership of Fairbourne's. An earl, of course, has no interest in running an auction house--and Darius is certainly not interested in allowing the lovely Miss Fairbourne to run it either, her ludicrous scheme notwithstanding. Clearly the business must be sold.

But the headstrong Emma is like no other lady he has ever encountered, refusing to follow his dictates. Holding his temper in check, Darius decides to attack on a different front. There is another way to achieve her surrender, one far more pleasurable for both of them...

Our Favorite Slow Cooker Beef & Chicken Cookbook: 2 cookbooks in one...chicken in one half, beef in the other ($3.23 Kindle) and 101 Soup, Salad & Sandwich Recipes ($1.99 Kindle), by Gooseberry Patch, are both in the medium length category for cookbooks (just over 100 pages each).

Our Favorite Slow Cooker Beef & Chicken Cookbook: 2 cookbooks in one...chicken in one half, beef in the other

2 cookbooks in one...chicken in one half, beef in the other! Over 60 delicious recipes and as many time-saving tips. Purse-friendly size makes meal-planning on the go easy.

101 Soup, Salad & Sandwich Recipes

Whether you're looking for lunch recipes, side dishes, or hearty mains, you'll love the variety in 101 Soups, Salads & Sandwiches Cookbook. Chicken & Dumplin' Soup, Spicy Sausage Chowder and Pioneer Beef Stew and BBQ Sloppy Joe Soup will all hit the spot! Tarragon Steak Dinner Salad and Pasta Taco Salad make tasty mains, while Mustard-Thyme Potato Salad and Raspberry Chicken Salad are great for toting to potlucks and picnics. Bite-sized or stacked high, friends & family will love sandwiches like Cheeseburger Roll-Ups, BBQ Chicken Calzones, Tuna Paninis and Lasagna Buns. Plus, with the "Terrific Toppings" chapter, you can sprinkle soups and salads with homemade garnishes like Zesty Pita Crisps and Bacon-Onion Croutons, and pile more flavor on sandwiches with Lemony Sage Mayonnaise or easy Refrigerator Pickles.

If you skipped out on getting individual titles in C. S. Lewis' Narnia series on the recent Daily Deal, you can now pre-order The Chronicles of Narnia Complete 7-Book Collection with Bonus Book: Boxen ($12.00 Kindle). That's both $2 less than the individual titles deal, but gives you the bonus book, as well (but doesn't get you the companion audiobook links). You will have to wait until November for delivery, but you will have the price locked in, in case of any increase (and still get any drop in price, if there is one between now and November).

Book Description
Features new introductions for each book in the series!

Narnia . . . a new world . . . where loyalty is tested . . . where anything can happen . . . where destiny awaits.

In the never-ending war between good and evil, The Chronicles of Narnia set the stage for battles of epic proportions. Some take place in vast fields, where the forces of light and darkness clash. But other battles occur within the small chambers of the heart and are equally decisive.

Journeys to the ends of the world, fantastic creatures, betrayals, heroic deeds and friendships won and lost—all come together in an unforgettable world of magic. Experience The Chronicles of Narnia in its entirety, now with special tributes by C. S. Lewis's stepson, Douglas Gresham:

• The Magician's Nephew
• The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe
• The Horse and His Boy
• Prince Caspian
• The Voyage of the Dawn Treader
• The Silver Chair
• The Last Battle

And then, discover the world before Narnia. When C. S. Lewis was a child, he and his brother Warnie created stories about "Animal-Land," exploring hits history, geography, and the colorful exploits of its inhabitants. Boxen is a collection of all of these stories, with the authors' own delightful illustrations. For every reader who has been captivated by the magic of Narnia, Boxen will open a window on to another enchanted land.

Sean Chercover has three titles currently on sale: Big City, Bad Blood ($0.99 Kindle) and Trigger City ($1.99 Kindle), both published by HarperCollins, and The Trinity Game ($3.99 Kindle), published by Thomas & Mercer

Big City, Bad Blood

A disillusioned newspaper reporter turned private detective, Ray Dudgeon isn't trying to save the world. He just wants to do an honest job, and do it well. But when doing an honest job threatens society's most powerful and corrupt, Ray's odds for survival make for a sucker's bet. . . .

While working on a movie in Chicago, Hollywood locations manager Bob Loniski saw something he shouldn't have. Now he's a prosecution witness against a suspected member of the Chicago Outfit. Petrified, he comes to Ray for protection. Ray's mob contacts insist that they have no interest in Loniski, so he takes the bodyguard gig.

Then people start dying and everything goes to hell.

Ray's investigation leads to a stash of blackmail files involving the sex trade, Washington political corruption, and a deadly power struggle among Chicago's organized crime bosses—setting the FBI, the Chicago police, and the mob on his tail. He now holds evidence against top-ranking cops and politicians . . . but with the line between good and bad blurring, he doesn't know who he can trust.

If he does the right thing, Ray is sure to die. But if he doesn't, how can he live with himself?

From the back alleys of Chicago to the mansions of Beverly Hills to the corridors of power in Washington, D.C., Sean Chercover's Big City, Bad Blood propels readers relentlessly forward on a bullet-fast, adrenaline-pumping ride they will not soon forget.

Trigger City

The facts:
A lonely woman was murdered by her disturbed coworker.
The police have investigated. The case is closed.
But facts are not truth.

A routine investigation of an open-and-shut case is just what PI Ray Dudgeon needs to recover from the physical and emotional consequences of confronting the Chicago Outfit—until "routine" spirals out of control. The victim was no quiet, unassuming, unlucky single woman; she lived a double life in the shadowy realm of covert intelligence . . . and she died for the truth. Suddenly, Ray's ensnared in a conspiracy of darkness that weaves its way through the very fabric of the nation, and in grave danger of becoming collateral damage in America's war on terror. And his greatest enemy may be himself.

The Trinity Game

Daniel Byrne is an investigator for the Vatican’s secretive Office of the Devil’s Advocate—the department that scrutinizes miracle claims. Over ten years and 721 cases, not one miracle he tested has proved true. But case #722 is different; Daniel’s estranged uncle, a crooked TV evangelist, has started speaking in tongues—and accurately predicting the future. Daniel knows Reverend Tim Trinity is a con man. Could Trinity also be something more?

The evangelist himself is baffled by his newfound power—and the violent reaction it provokes. After years of scams, he suddenly has the ability to predict everything from natural disasters to sports scores. Now the mob wants him dead for ruining their gambling business, and the Vatican wants him debunked as a false messiah. On the run from assassins, Trinity flees with Daniel’s help through the back roads of the Bible Belt to New Orleans, where Trinity plans to deliver a final prophecy so shattering his enemies will do anything to keep him silent.

Going Organic Can Kill You: A Blossom Valley Mystery ($1.99 Kindle), by Staci McLaughlin [Kensington], is a dollar less than the last time it was on sale (which is when I picked it up).

Book Description
Welcome to Blossom Valley, CA, home of the O'Connell Organic Farm and Spa, complete with its new marketing maven, Dana Lewis, former Blossom Valley resident and unapologetic junk food connoisseur--and soon to be sleuth. . .

As Dana readjusts to life back home with her recently widowed mother, her latest career move isn't exactly a piece of cake. In fact, it's all tofu fish sticks, stuffed squash blossoms, and enough wheat grass shots to scream bloody murder--especially when Dana discovers the body of Maxwell Mendelsohn, Hollywood producer and opening weekend guest, deader than a yoga corpse pose. While Dana pens the Spa's blog and balances the attentions of the local police and reporter Jason Forrester, her escalating job duties now include finding clues, motives and suspects. One thing's for certain, she better act fast before all this healthy living kills her.

Bargain Book Roundup

The Truck Food Cookbook: 150 Recipes and Ramblings from America's Best Restaurants on Wheels ($2.24), by John T Edge

Book Description
It’s the best of street food: bold, delicious, surprising, over-the-top goodness to eat on the run. And the best part is now you can make it at home. Obsessively researched by food authority John T. Edge, The Truck Food Cookbook delivers 150 recipes from America’s best restaurants on wheels, from L.A. and New York to the truck food scenes in Portland, Austin, Minneapolis, and more.

John T. Edge shares the recipes, special tips, and techniques. And what a menu-board: Tamarind-Glazed Fried Chicken Drummettes. Kalbi Beef Sliders. Porchetta. The lily-gilding Grilled Cheese Cheeseburger. A whole chapter’s worth of tacos—Mexican, Korean, Chinese fusion. Plus sweets, from Sweet Potato Cupcakes to an easy-to-make Cheater Soft-Serve Ice Cream. Hundreds of full-color photographs capture the lively street food gestalt and its hip and funky aesthetic, making this both an insider’s cookbook and a document of the hottest trend in American food.

500 Treasured Country Recipes from Martha Storey and Friends: Mouthwatering, Time-Honored, Tried-And-True, Handed-Down, Soul-Satisfying Dishes ($2.99), by Martha Storey (the cofounder of Storey Books).

Book Description
In this delicious collection, Martha Storey shares her family's and friends' time-tested country-cooking recipes. These simple, classic dishes will quickly become your own family's favorites! From apple pancakes and blackberry gingerbread waffles to chowders, sticky buns, puddings, pies, cookies, cole slaw, pot roast, fried chicken, barbecued ribs, stuffed squash, grilled corn, chutneys, roast pork, and casseroles of every description, you'll hand these heirloom recipes down to your children and grandchildren. Martha also teaches you the essential skills of the country kitchen -- making cheese, yogurt, and butter; curing meats and making sausage; putting up jams, pickles, and tomato sauce; brewing beer; making cider and maple syrup; pulling taffy; making liqueurs; baking bread; making ice cream; and much more.

Mad Hungry: Feeding Men and Boys ($2.99), by television host and Martha Stewart Living's Executive Food Director Lucinda Scala Quinn.

Book Description
Recipes and strategies for bringing back the family meal

When first published in 2009, Lucinda Scala Quinn's Mad Hungry met with critical acclaim, but it wasn't just the media that fell hard for this book--it was mothers everywhere, who embraced her message to bring back the family meal and loved the ease, simplicity, and robust goodness of her recipes. The book went on to launch a TV series (Mad Hungry with Lucinda Scala Quinn) and now, with over 65,000 copies sold, it is available in a paperback edition that will reach a yet wider audience.

In Mad Hungry, Scala Quinn shares winning strategies for how to sate the seemingly insatiable, trade food for talk, and get men to manage in the kitchen. She provides recipes for single-skillet meals, dinners that yield fabulous leftovers, and dishes that are a cinch to stretch fore extra guests. Her grab-and-run breakfasts will help kids start the day right, and her healthful drinks make it easier for guys to say no to soda. Along with her techniques that help make homemade meals second nature, nourishing both diner and cook, Scala Quinn offers empowering advice on how to feed one's family's spirits as well as fill their bellies.

The Ghosts of Belfast ($2.09), by Stuart Neville, has a starred reviews from Publishers Weekly (who called it a "stunning debut").

Book Description
Fegan has been a “hard man,” an IRA killer in northern Ireland. Now that peace has come, he is being haunted day and night by twelve ghosts: a mother and infant, a schoolboy, a butcher, an RUC constable, and seven other of his innocent victims. In order to appease them, he’s going to have to kill the men who gave him orders.

As he’s working his way down the list he encounters a woman who may offer him redemption; she has borne a child to an RUC officer and is an outsider too. Now he has given Fate—and his quarry—a hostage. Is this Fegan’s ultimate mistake?

Stuart Neville is a partner in a multimedia design business based in Armagh, northern Ireland. This novel, also known as The Twelve in the UK and Ireland, is the first in a series.

Night Blind ($0.99; companion audiobook $1.99), by Michael W. Sherer

Book Description
In the space of a few months, Blake Sanders has lost his job, his only son to suicide, and his marriage. A year later, it's gotten so bad that he can only face the world at night, working menial jobs washing dishes and delivering newspapers, lost in depression and grief.

Blake's world is turned upside down again on a cold November night, when an elderly woman on his newspaper route is brutally stabbed to death and Blake is charged with her murder. Faced with life in prison, his only hope is to find the real killer.

In a desperate attempt to unravel the mystery, Blake learns that his friend had stumbled onto secrets that have been buried beneath Capitol Hill for 150 years. Secrets that are now being disturbed by the construction of the new light rail tunnel. Secrets that will shake the government of Seattle. Secrets that foreign agents will kill for.

On the run from the police and murderers, Blake finds a chance to heal his grief and reclaim his life—if he can stay alive long enough to unearth the truth.

Heartstrings and Diamond Rings ($2.99), by New York Times bestselling author Jane Graves

Book Description
HE'S THE MAN OF HER DREAMS . . .
In a world full of frogs, Alison Carter is determined to find her prince. Maybe her dating past is more Titanic than Love Boat, but she's seen enough happy marriages to know that true love is possible. No matter what, she won't give up on happily-ever-after. If she can't find Mr. Right, she'll simply hire someone who can.

SHE JUST DOESN'T KNOW IT YET
When Brandon Scott inherits a successful matchmaking business, he thinks his prayers have been answered. Set up a few lonely ladies, collect the fee, how hard can it be? No one needs to know he's not really a professional matchmaker-especially not his first client, the beautiful, spirited Alison. Soon he's falling for her-and her dreams of kids and carpools. But Alison is getting close to figuring out his secret, and if she learns he's deceived her too, she'll walk right out the door, taking Brandon's heart with her.

Crashed ($2.51), Timothy Hallinan's first Junior Bender Mystery novel.

Book Description
INTRODUCING JUNIOR BENDER, THE FAVORITE BURGLAR-TURNED-PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR OF HOLLYWOOD CROOKS

Junior Bender is a Los Angeles burglar with a magic touch. Since he first started breaking into houses when he was fourteen years old, he’s never once been caught. But now, after twenty-two years of an exemplary career, Junior has been blackmailed by Trey Annunziato, one of the most powerful crime bosses in LA, into acting as a private investigator on the set of Trey’s porn movie venture, which someone keeps sabotaging. The star Trey has lined up to do all that’s unwholesome on camera is Thistle Downing, America’s beloved child star, who now lives alone in a drug-induced stupor, destitute and uninsurable. Her starring role will be the scandalous fall-from-grace gossip of rubber-neckers across the country. No wonder Trey needs help keeping the production on track.

Junior knows what that he should do—get Thistle out and find her help—but doing the right thing will land him on the wrong side of LA’s scariest mob boss. With the help of his precocious twelve-year-old daughter, Rina, and his criminal sidekick, Louie the Lost (an ex-getaway driver), Junior has to figure out a miracle solution.

The Pianist in the Dark ($4.22), by Michéle Halberstadt

Book Description
A stirring novel of love and music inspired by the life of pianist Maria-Theresa von Paradis, a blind virtuoso who was a contemporary of Mozart and Salieri

Maria-Theresa von Paradis, the only daughter of the secretary of the empress of Austria, was an exceptionally gifted child. By the age of seventeen, she was a full-fledged virtuoso, playing for the royal family, acclaimed for her beauty and talent . . . and because she was blind. Her father, unable to accept her condition despite her soaring musical gifts, enlists the help of Franz Anton Mesmer, the forerunner of the modern practice of hypnotism, where Maria-Theresa discovers the passions and emotions from which her blindness had previously protected her.

In the tradition of Sleeping with Schubert and TheCellist of Sarajevo, the novel is a moving portrait of courage, loss, the elation of first love—and the pain of lost innocence.

Dream Castle and My Heart's Desire ($1.99 Kindle), by Andrea Kane [Open Road]

Dream Castle

Her dark past could become her future, and only one man can save her

The dream is always the same. The terrifying stalker. The gaping abyss. She can see herself running, desperate to escape the huge black beast waiting to devour her. For Kassandra Grey, there is only one refuge from her nightmare—and a horrifying secret hidden in the swirling mists.

Braden Sheffield first spies her on a deserted beach—a lone figure who emerges from the fog like a stunning apparition. Betrayed by the woman who was to be his bride, the world-weary duke of Sherburgh is captivated by Kassie’s youth and beauty, by her candor and the tinkling music of her voice. But Kassie’s life is in grave danger. As passion ignites between them, Braden vows to protect Kassie no matter the cost—and to preserve a love that could be the fulfillment of their happiest dreams.

My Heart's Desire

Plunging from a well-bred lady to society’s most scandalous outcast, one woman faces danger and romance with a determination to live on her own terms

London’s high society assumes that Alexandria Cassell, a lady of impeccable lineage, is eager to wed the first suitable aristocrat who proposes. But Alexandria despises the shallow mindlessness of London society. Craving adventure, she steals down to the docks and stows away aboard a merchant ship bound for Canada.

Drake Barrett loves the open seas. As captain of his own vessel, he can escape his life as a duke, where he would be doomed to the empty chatter of glittering ballrooms. But when he finds a delicate beauty aboard ship, he forgets everything but a man’s desires.

From a fleeting island paradise to a country caught in the sudden crossfire of war, Drake and Alexandria give in to a passion that just might reveal their true passions . . . if a shocking act of treachery doesn’t separate them forever.

My Heart's Desire is the first book of the Barrett Family series, which concludes with Samantha.

Beyond the Ties of Blood ($2.76 Kindle), by Florencia Mallon [Pegasus Books]

Book Description
In the tradition of Isabel Allende, the debut novel from Chilean-American Florencia Mallon—a family saga that explores the lives touched by the tragedies of Chile’s vibrant history


In the political aftermath of the 1973 Chilean coup, Eugenia Aldunate is imprisoned and tortured. Her lover, Manuel, is savagely killed, one of the countless “disappeared” that would haunt Chile’s collective memory for decades. While still in the torture camp, Eugenia discovers she is pregnant and is exiled to Mexico and then to the United States to raise her daughter alone, forbidden to return. She builds a quiet life for herself as a journalist and professor, but the scars on her arms do not allow her to bury her past. Each night she aches for her homeland while fighting to suppress the horrific nightmares that still plague her.

Nearly twenty years after her exile, Eugenia is called back to Chile to testify in Manuel’s case and help seek justice for the others who disappeared. A rare living witness to these “camps,” Eugenia must come to grips with the legacy of violence and traumas left by Pinochet’s dictatorship and find truth and solace in the stories of those she left behind.

In the tradition of Kiran Desai’s The Inheritance of Loss and Julia Alvarez’s In the Time of Butterflies, Beyond the Ties of Blood is a tribute to the resilience of the human spirit and the transcendence of family.

In the Time of Butterflies and How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents ($1.99 Kindle), by Julia Alvarez

How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents

The Garcías—Dr. Carlos (Papi), his wife Laura (Mami), and their four daughters, Carla, Sandra, Yolanda, and Sofía—belong to the uppermost echelon of Spanish Caribbean society, descended from the conquistadores. Their family compound adjoins the palacio of the dictator’s daughter. So when Dr. García’s part in a coup attempt is discovered, the family must flee.

They arrive in New York City in 1960 to a life far removed from their existence in the Dominican Republic. Papi has to find new patients in the Bronx. Mami, far from the compound and the family retainers, must find herself. Meanwhile, the girls try to lose themselves—by forgetting their Spanish, by straightening their hair and wearing fringed bell bottoms. For them, it is at once liberating and excruciating being caught between the old world and the new, trying to live up to their father’s version of honor while accommodating the expectations of their American boyfriends. Acclaimed writer Julia Alvarez’s brilliant and buoyant first novel sets the García girls free to tell their most intimate stories about how they came to be at home—and not at home—in America.

In the Time of Butterflies

It is November 25, 1960, and three beautiful sisters have been found near their wrecked Jeep at the bottom of a 150-foot cliff on the north coast of the Dominican Republic. The official state newspaper reports their deaths as accidental. It does not mention that a fourth sister lives. Nor does it explain that the sisters were among the leading opponents of Gen. Rafael Leonidas Trujillo’s dictatorship. It doesn’t have to. Everybody knows of Las Mariposas—“The Butterflies.”

In this extraordinary novel, the voices of all four sisters—Minerva, Patria, María Teresa, and the survivor, Dedé—speak across the decades to tell their own stories, from hair ribbons and secret crushes to gunrunning and prison torture, and to describe the everyday horrors of life under Trujillo’s rule. Through the art and magic of Julia Alvarez’s imagination, the martyred Butterflies live again in this novel of courage and love, and the human cost of political oppression.

The currrent edition of The Deep Zone ($0.99 Kindle), by James M. Tabor[Random House], also contains the bonus short story Lethal Expedition (which sells for the same 99 cents on it's own). His next novel, Frozen Solid, releases this month.

Book Description
Burned by her own government in a trumped-up scandal, brilliant microbiologist Hallie Leland swore she’d never return to the world of cutting-edge science and dangerous secrets. But a shocking summons from the White House changes all that. A mysterious epidemic is killing American soldiers in Afghanistan—and poised for outbreak in the United States and beyond. Without the ultrarare organism needed to create an antidote, millions will die. Hallie knows more about “Moonmilk” than anyone—but it can be found only at the bottom of the deepest cave on Earth. To get there, she and her team of experts must brave a forbidding Mexican jungle crawling with drug cartels, federales, and murderous locals. And in the supercave await far greater terrors: flooded tunnels, acid lakes, bottomless chasms, mind-warping blackness—and a cunning assassin with orders to make the mission a journey of no return.

Free Book - Comfort Foods from the Dinner Doctor (DF)

Comfort Foods from the Dinner Doctor, which looks to be a 60 page mini-book of recipes taken from The Dinner Doctor ($9.99 Kindle), is free direct from Workman Publishing this month, as a part of their Blue Plate Specials promotion. I don't see the mini-edition in the Kindle store (yet), but they generally price these in the $4-$5 range, when they are available. Since The Dinner Doctor weighs in at over 500 pages, it's a pretty good deal if you want more than the sampler provides.

Book Description
One dish. A few simple supermarket ingredients. That's all it takes for the Dinner Doctor® to work her magic!

Get the free ebook from Workman, using promo code h0m3c00k1n (no spaces and those are numbers in places of some letters). The download is a DRM-Free PDF.

The Dinner Doctor

A marriage of the fast and fantastic, The Dinner Doctor proves that it's possible to cook meals for your family that taste great—and require little time, preparation, or hassle.

This is cooking that's not only about coping, but about pleasure. The first and most important step is choosing ingredients wisely. For the Dinner Doctor, that means prepared foods, whether canned, frozen, jarred, dried, or fresh from the salad bar or deli counter. Then comes the doctoring.

Jarred roasted red peppers are puréed with canned chicken broth and sour cream, and garnished with fresh chives for a memorable chilled soup for a summer dinner party. Bagged coleslaw mix is dressed up with nuts, bottle ranch dressing and pre-crumbled cheese for a Blue Cheese, Walnut, and Apple Slaw. Jars of marinara turn into Linguine with Red Clam Sauce (just add a can of clams, dry white wine, and parsley) or a zingy Saturday Night Fever Pasta—with the help of black olive paste and capers.

Even deli potato salad, as tasty as it often is, can take on a variety of personalities—enhance it with crumbled cooked bacon, or prepared horseradish, or curry powder and chopped scallions and shredded carrots. And bland chicken tenders—those saviors of quick cooking—are reinvented as Chinese Chicken, Chicken Piccata, and Curried Chicken and Apple Stew.

Making excellent use of slow cookers, embracing myriad shortcuts, boosting flavor and freshness with hundreds of ideas and quick touches, The Dinner Doctor brings all the joy of serving from-scratch meals into harried lives.

Bargain Books: Cookbooks and Non-Fiction

The Best Casserole Cookbook Ever: With More Than 500 Recipes! ($3.99 Kindle), by Beatrice Ojakangas and Susie Cushner (Photographer). Just the sample for this coobook is worth reading thru - there are a couple of chapters of recipes you can use, even if you decide to skip getting the entire thing (although at under four bucks, it's a steal).

Book Description
A good cook once said, a casserole is a blend of inspiration and what s on hand. Beatrice Ojakangas must have inspiration by the gallon, along with a very big kitchen, to come up with 500 comforting and creative casseroles ideal for any occasion. The enduring beauty of casseroles is that they come together quickly and they taste great the perfect dish doesn t get much better than that. The variety and versatility of these recipes will tempt you to make a casserole for every meal. Begin with a breakfast of Eggs Florentine, followed by Sweet & Sour Chicken for lunch, Pork Chops with Apple Stuffing for dinner, and Mocha Fudge Pudding for dessert. For the big family reunion, try Baked Spaghetti and Meatballs. Having an intimate dinner for two? Individual casseroles of Chicken Breast with Morel Mushrooms will make it both special and simple. Plenty of hearty dishes for vegetarians include the Latin-inspired Cornbread-Topped Black Bean Casserole and the Autumn Vegetable Stew (loaded with eggplant, zucchini, and carrots, and potatoes). Even appetizers can come in casserole form. Yummy and totally portable treats like Jarlsburg Cheese Spread and Parmesan and Sun-Dried Tomato Quiche are just right to bring to the party. 500 Casseroles serves up comforting dishes and innovative feasts for every meal of the day, every event whether big or small, and every style from down home supper to elegant dinner.

Plenty ($2.99 Kindle, $3.99 B&N, $3.49 Kobo - coupon eligible), by Yotam Ottolenghi and Jonathan Lovekin (Photographer), is more of a vegetable cookbook than vegetarian or think of it if as Vegetarian Cooking for the non-vegan, occasional meat eater. If you are strictly vegetarian, you'll need to adjust here and there to eliminate things like Parmesan Cheese. For those looking to add a few more vegetarian meals or wanting inspiration on what to do with that eggplant in the frig, it looks to be a perfect fit.

Book Description
Yotam Ottolenghi is one of the most exciting new talents in the cooking world, with four fabulous, eponymous London restaurants and a weekly newspaper column that's read by foodies all over the world. Plenty is a must-have collection of 120 vegetarian recipes featuring exciting flavors and fresh combinations that will delight readers and eaters looking for a sparkling new take on vegetables. Yotam's food inspiration comes from his Mediterranean background and his unapologetic love of ingredients. Not a vegetarian himself, his approach to vegetable dishes is wholly original and innovative, based on freshness and seasonality, and drawn from the diverse food cultures represented in London. A vibrant photo accompanies every recipe in this visually stunning book. Essential for meat-eaters and vegetarians alike!

Dropping Acid: The Reflux Diet Cookbook & Cure ($3.99 Kindle), by Jamie Koufman and Jordan Stern

Book Description
Dropping Acid: The Reflux Diet Cookbook & Cure is the first book to offer a nontraditional diet to help cure reflux, as well as the best and worst foods for a reflux sufferer. Using her extensive research, Dr. Koufman defines this shockingly common disease and explains why a change in diet can alleviate some of the most common symptoms. Her recipes use tasty fats as flavorings, not just as main ingredients and include a variety of dishes that prove living with reflux doesn't mean living without delicious food.

EntreLeadership ($1.99 Kindle, B&N, Kobo), by Dave Ramsey

Book Description
From New York Times bestselling author and nationally syndicated talk radio host Dave Ramsey comes the secret to how he grew a multimillion dollar company from a card table in his living room.

If you’re at all responsible for your company’s success, you can’t just be a hard-charging entrepreneur or a motivating, encouraging leader. You have to be both!

Dave Ramsey, America’s trusted voice on money and business, reveals the keys that grew his company from a one-man show to a multimillion-dollar business—with no debt, low turnover, and a company culture that earns it the “Best Place to Work” award year after year.

This book presents Dave’s playbook for creating work that matters; building an incredible group of passionate, empowered team members; and winning the race with steady momentum that will roll over any obstacle.

Regardless of your business goals, you’ll discover that anyone can lead any venture to unbelievable growth and prosperity through Dave’s common sense, counterculture, EntreLeadership principles!

This Will Make You Smarter: 150 New Scientific Concepts to Improve Your Thinking ($2.99 Kindle, B&N, Kobo), by John Brockman has been published in several print editions and looks to be interesting (despite the minimal description HarperCollins gives us for the Kindle edition).

Book Description
Edge.org presents brilliant, accessible, cutting-edge ideas to improve our decision-making skills and improve our cognitive toolkits, with contributions by Nassim Nicholas Taleb, Richard Dawkins, Brian Eno, Steven Pinker, and more. Featuring a foreword by New York Times columnist David Brooks and edited by John Brockman, This Will Make You Smarter presents some of the best wisdom from today’s leading thinkers—to make better thinkers out of the leaders of tomorrow.

Thomas Jefferson ($1.99 Kindle, B&N, Kobo), by Christopher Hitchens

Book Description
In this unique biography of Thomas Jefferson, leading journalist and social critic Christopher Hitchens offers a startlingly new and provocative interpretation of our Founding Father. Situating Jefferson within the context of America's evolution and tracing his legacy over the past two hundred years, Hitchens brings the character of Jefferson to life as a man of his time and also as a symbolic figure beyond it.

Conflicted by power, Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence and acted as Minister to France yet yearned for a quieter career in the Virginia legislature. Predicting that slavery would shape the future of America's development, this professed proponent of emancipation elided the issue in the Declaration and continued to own human property. An eloquent writer, he was an awkward public speaker; a reluctant candidate, he left an indelible presidential legacy.

Jefferson's statesmanship enabled him to negotiate the Louisiana Purchase with France, doubling the size of the nation, and he authorized the Lewis and Clark expedition, opening up the American frontier for exploration and settlement. Hitchens also analyzes Jefferson's handling of the Barbary War, a lesser-known chapter of his political career, when his attempt to end the kidnapping and bribery of Americans by the Barbary states, and the subsequent war with Tripoli, led to the building of the U.S. navy and the fortification of America's reputation regarding national defense.

In the background of this sophisticated analysis is a large historical drama: the fledgling nation's struggle for independence, formed in the crucible of the eighteenth-century Enlightenment, and, in its shadow, the deformation of that struggle in the excesses of the French Revolution. This artful portrait of a formative figure and a turbulent era poses a challenge to anyone interested in American history -- or in the ambiguities of human nature.

The Wilderness Warrior: Theodore Roosevelt and the Crusade for America ($1.99 Kindle, B&N, Kobo), by Douglas Brinkley

Book Description
From New York Times bestselling historian Douglas Brinkley comes a sweeping historical narrative and eye-opening look at the pioneering environmental policies of President Theodore Roosevelt, avid bird-watcher, naturalist, and the founding father of America’s conservation movement—now approaching its 100th anniversary.

Historian Douglas Brinkley draws on never-before-published materials to examine the life and achievements of our "naturalist president." By setting aside more than 230 million acres of wild America for posterity between 1901 and 1909, Theodore Roosevelt made conservation a universal endeavor. This crusade for the American wilderness was perhaps the greatest U.S. presidential initiative between the Civil War and World War I. Tracing the role that nature played in Roosevelt's storied career, Brinkley brilliantly analyzes the influence that the works of John James Audubon and Charles Darwin had on the young man who would become our twenty-sixth president. He also profiles Roosevelt's incredible circle of naturalist friends, including the Catskills poet John Burroughs, Boone and Crockett Club cofounder George Bird Grinnell, and Sierra Club founder John Muir, among many others. He brings to life hilarious anecdotes of wild-pig hunting in Texas and badger saving in Kansas. Even the story of the teddy bear gets its definitive treatment. Destined to become a classic, this extraordinary and timeless biography offers a penetrating and colorful look at Roosevelt's naturalist achievements, a legacy now more important than ever. As we face the problems of global warming, overpopulation, and sustainable land management, this imposing leader's stout resolution to protect our environment is an inspiration and a contemporary call to arms for us all.

Bargain Book Roundup

Guilt by Association ($2.99) is the first novel in Marcia Clark's Rachel Knight series. I'm picking it up to go with the second, Guilt by Degrees, which I snagged on sale last Summer.

Book Description
Los Angeles D.A. Rachel Knight is a tenacious, wise-cracking, and fiercely intelligent prosecutor in the city's most elite division. When her colleague, Jake, is found dead at a grisly crime scene, Rachel is shaken to the core. She must take over his toughest case: the assault of a young woman from a prominent family.

But she can't stop herself from digging deeper into Jake's death, a decision that exposes a world of power and violence and will have her risking her reputation--and her life--to find the truth.

With her tremendous expertise in the nuances of L.A. courts and crime, and with a vibrant ensemble cast of characters, Marcia Clark combines intimate detail, riotous humor, and visceral action in a debut thriller that marks the launch of a major new figure on the crime-writing scene.

The One-Minute Organizer Plain & Simple and The One-Minute Organizer A to Z Storage Solutions: 500 Tips for Storing Every Item in Your Home ($2.99 each), by Donna Smallin

The One-Minute Organizer Plain & Simple

Every day, in every way, you can get just a little more organized in just a few minutes.For instance, when you take your clothes off, hang them up or put them in the laundry. Throw out that pile of mail-order catalogs you still haven't flipped through. Limit yourself to saving one tote-bag-full of housecleaning rags.The One-Minute Organizer Plain & Simple is the perfect handbook for busy people who don't have time for a top-to-bottom purge or a complete organizational overhaul. Instead Donna Smallin provides 500 fast and innovative ways anybody can become a bit more organized . . . right now. Each tip delivers instant gratification, makes your world a little less cluttered, and brings you one step closer to a more orderly life.Smallin inspires readers by showing how much can be accomplished with an investment of no more than 15 minutes a day. Her quick solutions address such common troubles as paper clutter, household chores that never get done, bills that are always paid late, and schedules that never go quite as smoothly as planned. Every tip is accompanied by a time estimate of 1, 5, 10, or 15 minutes.These days, when everybody is playing a game of catch-up, The One-Minute Organizer Plain & Simple offers busy people 500 quick organizational fixes that will reduce some of the chaos and bring a little calm into a frenetic world.

The One-Minute Organizer A to Z Storage Solutions: 500 Tips for Storing Every Item in Your Home

Got a minute? That's all it takes to conquer clutter! Organizing guru Donna Smallin offers hundreds of quick tips for storing all your household items.

The latest in Storey's best-selling One Minute Organizer series, The One-Minute Organizer A to Z Storage Solutions offers practical advice based on the time-tested principle that everything — absolutely everything — has its place.

From airline tickets to x-rays, Smallin suggests handy ways of organizing household items neatly and in a way that makes the items easy to find. Her idea of "storage" goes far beyond baskets and plastic bins; with her help, readers will not only be able to keep their household items from piling up on the kitchen counter, they'll also be able to find everything they need in seconds. Smallin even tackles the most vexing kinds of clutter — children's artwork, receipts, holiday decorations, and mismatched socks.

Her tips are at once creative and common-sense — like storing earrings in ice cube trays, one set per cube.

Items are presented alphabetically for easy reference and browsing, and the book's colorful, quick-read format makes it both practical and fun. To help readers who are new to a clutter-free lifestyle, Smallin includes some time-tested organizing principles — like discarding old items as you acquire new ones and donating items that haven't been used in more than a year. Every page brings even the most clutter-challenged reader closer to a more ordered life.

With the help of this concise, no-nonsense reference, readers will enjoy more time and less mess. Best of all, they'll be able to find that take-out menu, spare tube of toothpaste, and elusive matching sock, every time.

Baking for All Occasions ($3.99), by Scott Peterson, Chuck Williams and Flo Braker. I may have to get this just to see how they make that Dark Chocolate Custard Tart.

Book Description
Baking expert Flo Braker rises to the occasion with more than 200 celebration-worthy recipes for baked goods. Whether it's an impressive Dark Chocolate Custard Tart to wish someone a happy birthday, a blue ribbon-worthy batch of Fresh Mint Brownies for the annual family reunion, or an Old World Braided Coffee Cake to impress the bridge club, each recipe is custom-crafted to commemorate life's special events. Lots of introductory information on techniques and ingredients ensure that each treat will be baked to perfection, making this a fabulous reference for any cookbook library. Baking for All Occasions makes each day something to celebrate.

Hachette is bringing out new editions of three of New York Times bestselling author Jeff Abbott's novels and you can pre-order them for $1.99 each right now.

Panic

What if everything about your life was a lie?

Evan Casher is a successful documentary filmmaker with a perfect life--until the day his mother is brutally murdered. Suddenly pursued by a ruthless circle of killers, Evan discovers his entire past has been a carefully constructed lie. With only one chance at survival and no one he can trust, Evan must discover the shocking truth about his family--and himself...

Fear

Everyone has a memory they'd like to forget. For federal witness Miles Kendrick, it's the shootout that left his best friend dead--and Miles a hunted and haunted man. While helping his psychiatrist with a mysterious favor, Miles stumbles upon an illegal research program that could free him--and millions of others with post-traumatic stress disorder--from crippling memories. But when his doctor ends up dead, Miles must run for his life from a murderous conspiracy that gives new meaning to the word "fear."

Collision

Ben Forsberg is a successful corporate consultant who is mourning the murder of his new bride.

"Pilgrim" is a former CIA agent who is weary from the long years of living in the shadows.

When Ben's business card turns up in the pocket of a dead hit man, Ben and Pilgrim, two complete strangers, realize that they've been framed in an elaborate setup. Unsure who to trust--and pursued by a brutal and vengeful killer--the unlikely partners have no choice but to work together to discover who's targeted them for elimination--and why. But with everything at stake, Ben has no idea that Pilgrim is harboring some shocking secrets of his own--secrets that will soon force Ben to confront the blurred line between best friends and bitter enemies.

Last up, there are a half-dozen promo editions of Sidney Sheldon's novels for $1.99 each, three of them available now and at the rest pre-orders. I'm picking up the lot (and replacing a couple of paper editions in the process). These promo editions often don't last in the catalog for long, so you'll want to sample and make up your mind fairly quickly. The descriptions on most of these editions are woefully brief, so I've copied the paperback synopsis below, for the most part. All include bonus material, which will be an excerpt from Sidney Sheldon's The Tides of Memory, available April 9th (and which was finished and edited by Tilly Bagshawe).

The Stars Shine Down with Bonus Material

In THE STARS SHINE DOWN, Sidney Sheldon returns to the powerful and classic themes that have made him one of the world's most popular bestselling authors. And in Lara Cameron, he has created his most memorable, richly drawn heroine to date. Lara is America's Princess, the power behind the tallest building on earth, a self-made billionaire who towers over a traditionally male domain, an icon of glamour and accomplishment to men and women everywhere. Beautiful but insecure, ruthless yet vulnerable, Lara has struggled brutally to achieve it all -- yet still wants more. And in a dazzling global setting from London to New York, from Reno to Rome, she will find everything she has ever desired and won -- her fortune, her fame, the man she loves -- swiftly and shockingly imperiled.

Nothing Lasts Forever with Bonus Material

Three young doctors-their hopes, their dreams, their unexpected desires... Dr. Paige Taylor: She swore it was euthanasia, but when Paige inherited a million dollars from a patient, the D.A. called it murder. Dr. Kat Hunter: She vowed never to let another man too close again-until she accepted the challenge of a deadly bet. Dr. Honey Taft: To make it in medicine, she knew she'd need something more than the brains God gave her. Racing from the life-and-death decisions of a big major hospital to the tension-packed fireworks of a murder trial, Nothing Lasts Forever lays bare the ambitions and fears of healers and killers, lovers and betrayers. And proves once again that no reader can outguess Sidney Sheldon, the master of the unexpected.

Morning Noon & Night with Bonus Material

A power revered by presidents and kings, a fortune unsurpassed by few people on earth: all that ended for Harry Stanford the day he mysteriously-and fatally-plunged from his luxury yacht into the Mediterranean Sea. Then, back home in Boston, as the family gathers to grieve for his memory and to war over his legacy, a stunningly beautiful young woman appears. She claims to be Stanford's long-lost daughter and entitled to her share of his estate. Now, flaming with intrigue and passion through the glamorous preserves of the world's super rich, the ultimate game of wits begins, for stakes too dazzling and deadly to imagine.

The Best Laid Plans with Bonus Material

He wanted power. Oliver Russell is fated to rise to the pinnacle of power, the office of President of the United States. She wanted revenge. Leslie Stewart is his betrayed fiancee, a woman dedicated to a single purpose-the downfall of Oliver Russell. Amassing her own media empire, marshaling all her forces against him, she stands poised to destroy Russell on the eve of his most dazzling triumph. From Sidney Sheldon, the unchallenged master of bestselling fiction, comes a story of blazing ambitions and thwarted love that enthralls and surprises with every page...

Tell Me Your Dreams with Bonus Material

She had read about stalkers, but they belonged in a different, faraway world. She had no idea who it could be, who would want to harm her. She was trying desperately not to panic, but lately her sleep had been filled with nightmares, and she had awakened each morning with a feeling of impending doom.

Thus begins Sidney Sheldon's chilling novel, Tell Me Your Dreams. Three beautiful young women are suspected of committing a series of brutal murders. The police make an arrest that leads to one of the most bizarre murder trials of the century. Based on actual events, Sheldon's novel races from London to Rome to the city of Quebec to San Francisco, with a climax that will leave the reader stunned.

The Sky Is Falling with Bonus Material

If America had a royal family, the Taylor Winthrops would wear the crown. In The Sky is Falling, the popular, charismatic Winthrops have captured the imagination of the world with their public service, their enormous charity, and their glamorous lives. But in the period of one year, all five members of the family are killed in a series of accidents. Beautiful young anchor woman Dana Evans begins an investigation and starts unraveling compelling evidence that she can hardly believe.

In her determined pursuit of the truth, Dana never anticipated the cat-and-mouse chase that leads her through a half dozen countries in search of a remorseless killer. As she closes in on her suspect, the shocking secrets she uncovers place Dana and her young son in dire jeopardy. Can Dana outwit her pursuers and expose the truth that will astound the world?